[tied] Re: Urartu.

--- In cybalist@..., "Rex H. McTyeire" <rexbo@...> wrote:

> O-: Urartu was already weakened under repeated Assyrian reverses.
>
> I would say suffering constant pressure from all sides, and

destined to be

> enveloped without any N.Pontic displacements impacting.
>
> O-: just because the Cimmerians were inferior to the Scythians

doesn't

> O-: mean they could not easily outmatch the Urartians.
>
> There is just no logic in fleeing battle at home to go engage in one
> somewhere else, and I am certain Urartian neighbors would have some

say in

> who passed to set up kingdoms.

The Huns, Avars, Kirghiz, Kalmyks, and others started as displaced
peoples from the Mongol or Turkestan steppes before riding westwards
to become successful against western states.

Jalal al Din fled Kwarezim after the Mongols destroyed his father's
kingdom in Uzbekistan. His army ravaged parts of Persia and the
Caucasus before burning out. The Mongols followed him in a
reenactment of the Scyth-Cimmerian drama.

A certain Turco-Mongol prince got kicked out of Kabul and rode with
his little army into India, capturing Delhi and founding the Mogul
Empire.

I could draw some parallels with some Germanic tribes fleeing the
Huns, or with the Sioux moving onto the Great Plains.

The thing is: some people of a nation will fight and die against
stronger agressors, some will accept foreign rule, others will pack
up and leave.

>
> O-:. Remember, Herodotus also believed that a tribe in
> O-: Russia turned into wolves.
>
> He reported religions with the perspective of the period. Dacians

were once

> known as the wolf people, and legends there and north..resulted in

our

> Western corruption of werewolf & vampire..the latter very Zalmoxian.
> (Peasant ghost hunters still impale corpses in rural Romania.)
>

The point was that we sometimes have to take Herodotus with a grain
of salt.

> O-:He was also wont to believe the Amazons
> O-: still lived - placing them just beyond the Greek horizon in the
> O-: Caucasus steppe where nobody could disprove him.
>
> I think you will find he married them off to Scythian troops, and

placed

> them as a new group north of the Danube..to the west of Scythian

holdings.

>

Again, when in his age he knew that the Amazons did not live on the
Thermedon plain as Homer said, he simply moved them to just beyond
the know Greek world, which at that time would have been a couple
Greek trade stations near the Tauric Chersonese and a couple beyond
Trebizond. I am aware of the Scythian and related burial mounds
with 'warrior' women. I agree that they are the essence of the
legends of the Amazons who very well could have been part of the
Cimmerians that made it to Anatolia. Cimmerian survivors were
probably still present there in Homer's time, but not during the
Bronze Age Trojan War of the 13th century bc.

> O-:That is why every historic movement
> O-: has been around the east or central pass, which would have been
> O-: challenging enough in themselves.
>
> Disagree: there was as much or more traffic into Anatolia across the
> Dardanelles. Conceding only that much later, as solid city states

emerged

> about the Aegean...more threat came from the NE
>

Oh, yes, I agree. I totally believe that the Hittites and other
Anatolians came from this direction and not from the east. I believe
that the Trojans and others or NW Anatolia were already Thracians in
the Bronze Age, with some of their kin absorbed into the populations
of Lydia and other Anatolian states as well as Greece to explain the
kinship and participation of, for example, Sarpedon of Lycia. Homer's
king of India, BTW, I believe was the Hittite overlord of Ilion/
Wilusa.

> O-: It seems more realistic for the Scythians to follow the

Cimmerians.

> O-: Given that they settled for a time in NW Iran and no doubt
> O-: Azerbaijan, and eastern approach seems doubly more realistic.
>
> I still think the real damage eastwards was done by Scythians

occupying

> Cimmeria..and not unusually...called Cimmerians. Elements of both

settled

> wherever they could avoid resistance, But Scythians had a home to

return to;

> and Cimmerians were refugees. Cappadochia was a soft enough area
> politically to accommodate some Cimmerian remnants.
>

That's pretty much what I have been saying, except the Scythians'
superior army allowed them to settle wherever they wanted. They chose
the Ukraine after withdrawing from NW Iran, IMO, bringing their
conquered peoples with them - a polyglot that many people today
simplistically recognize as only Iranian.

> O-: Yes, I agree the Cimmerians settled in Cappadochia. Other than

being

> O-: the homeland of the Amazons, however, I'm not sure what legends

you

> O-: are talking about.
>
> A later resurgence of Taurian or N. Pontic religion, including

Artemis

> (already well established in Anatolia IMO). The change also shows

up in

> Greek legend, as the centers of Artemisian worship shifted..
> Taurus/Ephesus/Crete/Brauron....to Cappadochia and Rhodes, to the

extent

> that the Greek preistess (cum Goddess) Iphigenia, Is "transferred"

there

> (or just visiting) in later Greek versions of her story.
>

Artemis and Artemis-like goddesses were common all over the IE world.
The Greeks usually identified a given deity of another people with
their own and called them as such. Apollo and Artemis were, IMO,
borrowed from the Thracians. The Ephesian Artemis was originally the
Anatolian Great Goddess, as was the goddess of Aphrodisias whom the
Greeks identified with Aphrodite, etc.

> O-: Any lingering Cimmerian power after their legendary
> O-: defeat by the Lydians, however, would have been extinguished

when the

> O-: Medes annexed the area.
>
> The crux of our difference: besides original location, route of

refugees,

> actions on route, Cimmerian/Scythian name confusion re some actions

(maybe

> even Phrygia)..I don't think they ever had much power beyond a

horde of

> refugees. A large remnant group of refugees, after some survival

raiding,

> finally found an uncontested spot to settle, and were later

absorbed by

> ongoing regional power struggles.
>

That's pretty much what I said.

> O-: For the Cimmerians to flee from the Scythians, they could not

have

> O-: been located any further west than directly north of the

Caucasus.

> O-: Otherwise, they would have had to sneak around the Scythians'

flank

> O-: and doubleback southeastwards. Therefore, it seems to me that

they

> O-: were located on the north Caucasic steppe or fled down the

Volga and

> O-: across the Kalmyk steppe from some homeland along the middle

Volga or

> O-: eastwards to the southern Urals.
>
> Only to get where you try to put them from where you try to start

them :-)

> which I contest. Provide one piece of evidence other than a very

few

> classical uses of Cimmerian eastward; (when it could mean Scythians

of

> Cimmeria). Explain why after the movement displacing Cimmerians;

Scythians

> are crossing the Dniester and raiding Getae and Daci, and pushing

them into

> conflict with displaced Tyragetae refugees, and then conveniently

found

> there by Persians and Macedonians?
>

State above. After the Scythians withdrew from NW Iran, they settled
in the Ukraine to be found there later by Greeks and Persians.

> O-: If they were Thracian-speaking, however, then this language

group

> O-: would have had a huge territory, which would rather crowd the
> O-: Armenians and Iranian pastoralists between the Kazakh steppe

and the

> O-: Altai mountains. I think we need to give them more room than

this.

>
> My buddy (Herodotus) suggests Thracians were the most numerous

peoples of

> the earth after Indians, and could be dangerous if united..which

they

> weren't. I don't think in the environment of and about the steppe

at the

> time..you can draw a linguistic line at all. It was perpetual

chaos. I have

> no problem with pre Scythian (as well as western) folk intermingled

with

> scattered Thracians, particularly eastward.
>
> Rex H. McTyeire
> Bucharest, Romania

You seem to be a Thracophile. Our buddy Herodotus never suggested
that the Thracians ever ranged into Asia. While you are correct in
noting that the steppe populations were in perpetual flux, there
still needed to be an area where a reservoir of Armenians and
Iranians could develop. That would have been difficult with the
Thracians hogging half the steppes (the better half) as you suggest.
There were times of relative peace where populations could somewhat
stabilize in a given area. There was probably some overlap of
populations or a no-man's land about the Don-lower Volga region,
which was a convenient boundary between ancient peoples at times due
to the comparatively poor pasturage about that region. Because of
this, centers of power were generally based on the middle Volga, the
Kazakh steppe south and east of the Urals, the Ukraine forest-steppes
with a center a gravity nearer the Carpathians, and less to the north
Caucasus steppe.